Vietnam garment industry feeling heat

Vietnam garment industry feeling heat Only 20 percent to 30 percent of Vietnam's apparel manufacturing companies will survive 2009, suggests a report from the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association.
   Pham Xuan Hong, the association’s deputy chairman, said that while some garment makers have enough orders to ensure jobs through the first quarter of the year, others have received only enough orders to meet half production capacity, while some have received no orders at all.
   Orders from the United States have declined 20 percent to 30 percent, he said, according to a report Tuesday in VietnamNetBridge. That’s even as producers have had to drop unit prices 3 percent to 8 percent to lure importers to make orders. The size of orders has also come down, the association said, with companies typically receiving orders for 10,000 units now getting orders for 4,000 to 5,000 units.